Global fire activity patterns (1996–2006) and climatic influence: an analysis using the World Fire Atlas

Abstract

Abstract. Vegetation fires have been acknowledged as an environmental process of global scale, which affects the chemical composition of the troposphere, and has profound ecological and climatic impacts. However, considerable uncertainty remains, especially concerning intra and inter-annual variability of fire incidence. The main goals of our global-scale study were to characterise spatial-temporal patterns of fire activity, to identify broad geographical areas with similar vegetation fire dynamics, and to analyse the relationship between fire activity and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. This study relies on 10 years (mid 1996–mid 2006) of screened European Space Agency World Fire Atlas (WFA) data, obtained from Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) and Advanced ATSR (AATSR) imagery. Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis was used to reduce the dimensionality of the dataset. Regions of homogeneous fire dynamics were identified with cluster analysis, and interpreted based on their eco-climatic characteristics. The impact of 1997–1998 El Niño is clearly dominant over the study period, causing increased fire activity in a variety of regions and ecosystems, with variable timing. Overall, this study provides the first global decadal assessment of spatial-temporal fire variability and confirms the usefulness of the screened WFA for global fire ecoclimatology research.

Application of spectral analysis techniques in the intercomparison of aerosol data: 1. An EOF approach to analyze the spatial‐temporal variability of aerosol optical depth using multiple remote sensing data sets

“…Interestingly, EOF 4 of all four data sets captures the increased biomass burning over Southeast Asia during the 2006 El Niño (Figures 8 and 9), although the spatial signal from Aqua data appears weaker. This result is consistent with previous studies by van der Werf et al [2006], Le Page et al [2007] and Logan et al [2008] biomass burning over the Indonesia. It indicates that EOF analysis is able to separate the interannual variability of aerosol properties influenced by climate modes such as ENSO.…”

Assessment and validation of wildfire susceptibility and hazard in Portugal

“…Such is the case of Amatulli et al (2007) who applied interpolation techniques to map lightning/human-caused wildfires, or Durão et al (2010) whose work, dealing with the Canadian FWI system, tried to assess the probability of fire in a given region by running simulations. Apart from the somewhat static approach of susceptibility assessments, other authors have explored the correlations of wildfires and weather conditions, such as in Pereira et al (2005), Trigo et al (2006) and Le Page et al (2008). Wildfire prevention is a vector for model development, driving efforts for a better prediction of those conditions that favour fire spread, or to allow for a quicker wildfire detection.…”

Postglacial fire history and interactions with vegetation and climate in southwestern Yunnan Province of China

“…Thus, it is necessary to reconstruct past longterm fire frequency histories, which can inform the current conceptual models of forest recovery after fire and provide guidance for forest management strategies in areas affected by frequent fires (Tinner et al, 1999;McWethy et al, 2013;Morales-Molino et al, 2013;Kloster et al, 2015). Fire histories have been reconstructed by using the time series of fire atlases (Rollins et al, 2001;Le Page et al, 2008), collection and analysis of fire-scarred trees (Arno and Sneck, 1977;Bake and Dugan, 2013), and charcoal particle analysis in peat and lake sediments (Whitlock and Larsen, 2001;Holz et al, 2012;de Porras et al, 2014). However, sources of fire atlases and fire-scarred trees are limited, and their time spans are relatively short (Brunelle and Whitlock, 2003), whereas the charcoal records from peat and lake sediments can provide long continuous fire frequency history and allow vegetation-fire-climate interactions to be examined (Gavin et al, 2007;Morales-Molino et al, 2013).…”